Analysis and Evaluation of Cooking Parameters for Sweet Bakery Products

Cooking process is essential for the preparation of sweet bakery products, such as Panettone, a typical Italian seasonal dessert. This study is aimed at evaluating the features of the finished product leaving the oven chamber using the Design of Experiments technique. Four features of the product like “water activity”, “humidity”, “pH” and “sensorial judge” have been explained as functions of independent variables: recipe of the dough, affecting the dough strength and cooking process parameters, such as time, temperature and oven chamber configuration. A two-level, complete four-factor design has been used to carry out the experiments; consequently the analysis of variance has pointed out the effects of main factors and some of their interaction effects; multiple regression analysis was also carried out to explain the variability and to predict the process. The model can be profitably adopted in order to adjust the cooking process parameters in accordance to the dough recipe or the boundary cooking conditions. This study can be further developed by optimizing the input factors in order to maximize the “overall rating” response of the finished product.